Israeli Restrictions On Gaza Amount To "Collective Punishment"

[Purveyor]

An Israeli human rights organisation has criticised its government's reduction of the fishing limit for Gaza's fishermen from six to three nautical miles. "This constitutes collective punishment and severely damages the livelihood of the fishermen," said the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B'Tselem) in a statement issued in the wake of new Israeli measures against the people of the Gaza Strip.

The new measures have, it was revealed by army spokesman Avichay Adraee, been agreed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya'alon. The excuse given by Adraee for the punishing new limit was the launch of "five rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli targets". The Palestinian government in Gaza denies that any rockets were fired last week. It condemned the restricted fishing limit and the closure of the Kerem Shalom crossing, the normal entry and exit point for commercial goods.

According to B'Tselem, the moves by the Israeli government are violations of the Geneva Conventions. "Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids collective punishment and states that a person must not be punished for an act that he or she did not commit," it said in a statement. "It is Israel's duty to protect its borders and its citizens and to act to neutralise a threat when it arises, but this cannot justify the harsh damage to fishermen who have done nothing wrong." The organisation pointed out that the fishing limit agreed under the Oslo Accords is 20 nautical miles.

"Even after Oslo, in practice the Israeli military initially allowed Gaza fishermen to fish at a maximum of only 12 nautical miles. Over the years, Israel reduced this range and after Operation Cast Lead limited it to three nautical miles." This was extended to six miles as one of the terms of the ceasefire agreed last November between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinian government.

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http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/5609-israeli-restrictions-on-gaza-amount-to-collective-punishment

[dipsydoodle]

1. Collective punishment

is a war crime.

[Jefferson23]

3. It could very well be. I have not found anything yet to confirm that it has been decided one way

or the other.

This snip is from the end but in whole, an informative piece:

Prosecuting the War Crime of Collective Punishment
Is It Time to Amend the Rome Statute?

The 2010 Review Conference represents the first opportunity for remedying the deficit in the Statute with regard to the omission of the war crime of collective punishment. It remains to be seen if the Assembly of States Parties will rise to the challenge. The focal point seems to suggest that not every issue will be addressed at the Review Conference, when noting that ‘there is no legal obligation to convene further Review Conferences afterwards, although amendments may be adopted later without holding such Conferences’.117 Rolf Einar Fife completed his 2007 progress report by stating that the first Review Conference must ‘not be prepared on the basis of any misperception that this “would be the last opportunity to address a particular issue” ’.118 The jurisprudence of the SCSL and the practice of recent armed conflicts strongly suggest that the omission of the war crime of collective punishment from the Rome Statute of the ICC is a ‘particular issue’ which merits thorough consideration at the forthcoming Review Conference.

http://jicj.oxfordjournals.org/content/8/1/29.full

[azurnoir]

2. well we're told here that this what the people of Gaza wanted and should expect

because it was they who voted in Ham,as as their sole leaders

well except they didn't Hamas took Gaza over by force in June of 2007, but I guess some also believe in the down the memory hole principle too

and yes it is collective punishment